December 4, 2016
Sage Story | The Love of God
- Isaiah 42:1-9
- Rev. Dr. Jerry Deck
Before we dive into this passage it is helpful to remember what exactly is going on in the life of Israel during the time that this prophecy of Isaiah was being proclaimed. The Israelites, like most groups of people and most nations, had experienced the ups and downs of life. God had called them in a vivid way through Abraham and had certainly blessed them in many ways. Then, as most of us are aware, after being saved by Joseph from famine they began to flourish in the land of Egypt. At some point though, their flourishing became intimidating and so they were enslaved by the Egyptians and forced to live in desperate and difficult times. But God worked through Moses and the Israelites were finally freed from their lives of slavery and began their journey to the Promised Land. The journey, however, was not always smooth and they wrestled with truly believing that God was going to follow through on his promise to them and because of that lack of faith they ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. But then finally after these 40 years they entered the Promised Land. There were certainly times of weakness and falling short, but then prophets would come and painfully realign them in the ways of God.
But then the Babylonians came onto the scene. And the Babylonians absolutely crushed the Israelites. They crushed the temple, their stocks, their spirits and the people. The vast majority who were not killed were sent away into exile in order to be slaves yet again. And with all of that, not surprisingly, doubts arose about the God of Israel. Why had he turned a blind eye? Why was he ignoring them? Did he not have the power to change things? Was he even there at all? And it is into that setting, into that despair, into that hopelessness, that Isaiah speaks. And what Isaiah says to them is that all is not lost. That God has turned away from them, that God is there and he will no longer be silent.
Isaiah reminds them that their God, the one who (as he says) created the heavens and the earth and who has given breath to every person on that earth was going to at long last bring justice to the world. That he was going to provide a servant who would bring sight to the blind and free the prisoners. In other words, he is going to make the world right and the way he desired it to be from the beginning. That Israel, the very Israel that right then was scattered and forlorn, would end up being a light to the nations of the world. That, as we see in verse 9, the former things (meaning slavery and loss and pain and depression) were going away and a new thing, by the power of God, was springing forth. As one commentator has put it, this passage in Isaiah is good news for those who are depressed about the way things are in the world. (Amen to that!) It is this vivid reminder to us of a theme we’ve perhaps providentially hit on of late which is that God is in control and has not given up, so we must not give up.
This is a great word for us, not just because of where we are in our world right now, but because of this season of Advent. It is a message of hope and expectation that fits perfectly into this season of our liturgical calendar. It paints a beautiful picture as to the vision of what is to be and what we are to continue to strive for. A world where God’s justice reigns, where relationships are reconciled, people are made whole, and the love of God streams through the world. In a sense then, this passage is about not losing hope, not becoming cynical, remembering that God is in control and because of that we need not be anxious. A bit like the baby shoe that I talked about a couple of weeks ago that Megan had in the delivery room so as to remind her of the ultimate beautiful goal and not be overwhelmed with the pains of labor.
However, what I found incredibly fascinating this week was not just this beautiful picture of what is to be, but is the way in which this vision will be achieved. In many ways when we hear visions like this, that seem the opposite of the world in which we are living in, it is a rally cry of sorts. It is a kind of charge the hill battle cry to join together and to attack with all the force that we can muster in order to make this beautiful picture come true.
But instead of this type of rally cry, we are given this, well let’s be honest, less than riveting or fiery or highly-charged motivational talk that we would expect or be used to. Instead, we are told that the servant who will do God’s bidding will “not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” The Message perhaps puts it even more poignantly. “He’ll set everything right among the nations. He won’t call attention to what he does with loud speeches or gaudy parades. He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but he’ll steadily and firmly set things right.”
Now, no offense to Isaiah or the Bible, but that’s not the way things are usually done. He won’t call attention to what he is doing, he won’t break a bruised reed or put out dimly burning wick? What kind of rah-rah speech is that? That’s not how you get things done, is it? No, no. The way we get things done is through volume, lots and lots of volume. It’s through a no holds barred, bombastic, take no prisoners approach. You get things done by having everything figured out, or at least acting like you do. Right? But in the midst of that, Isaiah, for those who have ears to hear points to ta servant who works primarily it seems in an oftentimes quiet, steady, and relentless manner. This is the way of the servant of the Lord.
Perhaps this is the time to ask who this somewhat strange servant of the Lord is. There are many references to this servant in Isaiah and at times it seems to point to Israel as a whole, since it is through Israel that God oftentimes works. That may certainly be the case, but as Christians we see the primary servant, of course, as being Jesus himself. And in Matthew it is clear that this is what the gospel writer thought as well. In the 12th chapter, Matthew explicitly points out that the way in which Jesus acted was in full accord with Isaiah 42 and in fact he goes on to quote this very passage. And this Isaiah quote is embedded in a time when Jesus has been at odds with the religious leaders to the point where they were conspiring about how to get rid of him. But as Dale Bruner points out, at this point of his ministry rather than trying to show them who was really Lord or having it out with them, Jesus moved on not out of fear, but out of a sense of mission. And he moved on not to a bigger stage, but to those who were suffering or, as Isaiah might put it, the bruised reeds and faltering candles, and loved and healed them. Of course, there were times when Jesus the Servant vigorously confronted the powers that be, but (and this is critical to see) that was grounded in his daily, sacrifice, of loving and healing those whom he met, furthering God’s mission not through power, but through serving. As Dale Bruner puts it Jesus was quiet, not quietistic (passive), nonviolent, but not uninvolved, gentle but also passionate for God’s truth. He did this day-by-day, person-by-person, not flinching, not being crushed.
And, well, without dilly-dallying too much (because I only have so much time), let me say as simply as I can that it seems to me that there is a word in that for the church today, for the community that is called to embody the Servant. We are in a time when the noise and the rhetoric and the self-righteousness is so voluminous and where everyone is certain that they are right and have never made mistakes and bent on beating their opponents into merciless submission while grasping desperately for power. We love to tell those on the other side of this issue or that not just that they’re wrong, but that quite frankly we don’t even know how they exist in this world thinking like they do. We are in a time where words come flying off of our tongues and via the typing of our fingers and where the more we say or the louder we say it makes us feel better and better about ourselves and even more certain of just how noble we are. We are in a time, as someone so aptly put it, where we love the ecstasy of our disgust with others. There is something thrilling about not only having an opinion, but about taking that opinion and crushing anything that stands in its way.
And in the midst of that self-righteousness and bombast, in the midst of the thrill of the shrill, we hear these gentle words of Isaiah. “He will not cry or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.”
You see, I have a theory which is that the reason why we prefer the more bombastic approach is because it so much easier, less messy, more comfortable. As Henri Nouwen said it is easier to approach things in this way, to grasp for power, then doing the hard task of love. And you see the hard task of love, as we saw so clearly with Jesus, is primarily about the daily grind of loving and giving and confessing and forgiving and serving and reconciling. That is the slow, relentless movement towards the justice to which Isaiah spoke. Make no mistake, whether you are on this side or that side, the primary way to work towards God’s kingdom is not by making a large statement or a loud speech or Facebook post or railing with all your friends about your enemies, but rather by engaging in the oftentimes small, unnoticeable, messy and slooooow process of daily moving closer to God and God’s desire for this world. That doesn’t mean that rallies are evil or that we shouldn’t challenge institutions or post things on Facebook (okay, it does mean that!), but I do think that as followers of the Servant, those things bubble up from our hard, daily, oftentimes quiet work of serving others. It is only when we do that that we can be more certain that we are following the righteousness of the Servant rather than our own.
As I was thinking about this way of the servant I had a picture that came to my mind. Actually, it was a couple of different pictures that were taken by Brad Thompson of Loose Threads, a ministry of ZPC. [Show slide] When I first looked at these pictures a couple of months ago I was quite honestly mesmerized by these hands. Hands that had seen and experienced much. Hands that were feebler than they had once been, perhaps even somewhat vulnerable hands. Hands that perhaps would not scare many and would certainly not seem to represent dominant power. And yet, these are hands that are doing the small, minute, slow, work of cutting material and threading needles and sewing together wool and fleece until they become not anything elaborate or breathtaking necessarily, but simple quilts. Quilts that then get taken downtown in order to be distributed to the homeless, the hungry, perhaps as Isaiah might say, to those who have been imprisoned or have sat in darkness. In 5 years I’m told about 1,500 of these blankets given from person to person to person after having been made, toiled over, day-by-day, week-by-week and year-by-year.
You might be saying, as I was saying to myself as I wrote this sermon out,
Are you kidding me, you talk about all of this justice and helping God’s kingdom and you see what’s going on around us and the infighting and the acrimony of politics and the struggles of the church and you bring us to the importance of sewing quilts?!” Yeah, I think that’s exactly what I’m saying. Is that if we want to follow the servant as described in Isaiah and as seen in the life of Jesus, that it actually begins not with great fanfare or a megaphone or a litany of saying I’m right and you’re wrong, but it begins, by being grounded in the God who says do you trust me enough to begin with the hard work of sacrifice, the difficult task of loving each day, the quiet, intentional act of suffering and serving. I’m not talking about ignoring what is going on around us or in hiding from politics or rallies or whatnot, but I am saying that if those things aren’t grounded in the humble and suffering servant that we see in Jesus, then it is likely that we have been caught up in the kingdom of this world and not in the kingdom of God. I am saying that in these hands is where justice so often begins, knowing that God works through us not because our hands and voices are mighty, but because we are frail but trust him to work through us.
The beautiful quilt of justice and God’s kingdom cannot simply be bought at a store or shouted into being. It is choosing each day to take up the needle and thread and slowly going about the hard task of love. It will involve a sacrifice of time and the pain of pricking our fingers and even at times having to go back and start over. But if we as a community will spend our time in this messy labor of love, if we will relentlessly work towards the mission of God, not allowing ourselves to be crushed or overcome, then we will begin to see the tapestry of God’s kingdom even in our midst. It will not be as easy as raising our voices or shouting over our enemies, but in the gentleness and frailty of the work of our hands we will be a part of the new thing that God has declared. May we have the courage to reflect not the society in which we live, but the kingdom in which we will live. By God’s strength and his strength alone. Amen.